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A good playground for being totally present and going with the flowin a chaotic situation is in heavy traffic. This was one of my biggest ah-ha moments ever. I had gotten off work early one day. It’s a rare treat to get off work early, so I ran a few errands downtown. I rarely go south of where I work, so a trip to downtown usually is a headache. This was the perfect day for it! After my errands were all run, I wanted to get home quickly. That should be easy at 3pm, right? Wrong! For some reason it was a very early rush hour and this really soured my mood. It takes an hour to get home as it is. How could I be stuck in traffic? It’s a lovely day and I want to be home quickly, enjoying the sunshine and my animals!

During this rush home, I was listening to a favorite guru, Eckhart Tolle on my iPod. He was talking about presence in the moment from his book The Power of Now. One of my favorite passages is where he talks about not resisting what the present moment brings. I was wholeheartedly agreeing with him about being in the present moment one minute, and complaining loudly to myself about the non-moving traffic the next. [Angrily] “How unfair life is that I’m stuck in traffic on such a gorgeous day!” [Happily] “Yeah, live in the moment as if you accepted it yourself!” [Angrily] “What is with this traffic?”

I did this mental and emotional badminton a few times until…Shazam…I realized what Eckhart Tolle meant about not resisting what the current moment brought, and laughed at how silly I was being. All this time I was agreeing with the author about living in the moment, and the next thing out of my mouth was a complaint about what was happening. I knew it was time for me to stop complaining about anything. Complainingis non-acceptance of What is. This goes against all my new found philosophies of going with the flow, avoiding chaos, etc.

That was a defining moment, and a really big insight into my mind chatter. I found I could make that change inside and live a happier life on the outside. I immediately switched to a relaxed mood, turned up some good music, and enjoyed the sunshine and beautiful skies. I sent a good feeling to other cars around me and relaxed. I realized I had been making myself miserable for no good reason. Now it didn’t matter if I was ‘stuck’ in traffic or zooming along the road. You get to choose the mood of the current moment, regardless of the outer circumstances. This makes everything in your life much smoother, happier, easier to experience. Fun even!

Through the Law of Attraction, we attract what we are signaling. Our inner vibes and energysignals what we want more of. Now I get it. Now it makes sense to me. I was complaining, frustrated and angry. If I continued down that road, I’d only be experiencing more of the same. This was like finding a key that fit every door!

Try using slow traffic as a way to practice mindfulness and patience. Another way I practice patience is to think of the worst scenario of being late. For me, that’s being late for or missing a flight. Even in that instance, you can catch another flight. Maybe you might miss an event. When I feel panic about missing, let’s say, an important event like a wedding, I remind myself that everything happens for a reason. Everything has what I call, divine right timing. Relax and enjoy the moment. Since you are not curing cancer, don’t sweat it! You could be delayed by Spirit because there may be an accident ahead. There are many reasons to just go with the flow and trust in divine right timing of all that is unfolding around you.

What exactly does that mean? For me it means being a genuine person, being open, transparent as possible, organic, home-grown, you name it. I believe that it really means being true to yourself. It’s like being an open book to others with no hidden agendas. I think of it as standing in your personal power but doing no harm. To me it is being yourself, as much as you can be. The more you are true to yourself, the more people will see, feel, and sense your authenticity.

“This above all, to thine own self be true. And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.” —From Hamlet, by William Shakespeare

The above quote from Hamlet is something that often comes to mind when someone is looking for advice on what to do and they are inwardly conflicted or really torn about something and they have to make a decision. If you take the advice and are true to yourself, most everything else falls into place. Take care of yourself first, then others can be served.

This is also a really big hint to the fine line between being compassionate and being a doormat for the world. Continue reading →

When I hear someone is having a hard time with life, miserable, or suffering through a painful experience, I also experience pain at the empathy level. I can almost feel it, viscerally, inside my body, emotionally, and mentally. How did this happen? How was I softened? I can tell you, when it was time to end a relationship that was over 18 years long, it was difficult. I held on to the bitter end. It was me being foolishly loyal to someone who did not have my best interest at heart. It felt like torture to be in this relationship every day. I seemed to do something wrong, not make my partner happy, and no matter how hard I tried, I was made to feel that everything was naturally my fault and I failed at every attempt to ‘fix’ things.

You might think my compassion was born of simply going through a divorce, but it was not. You might think that ending the marriage made me more compassionate, but it wasn’t that. You might think the pain I suffered through the marriage was where compassion was born, but it was not. What really opened me up was, when I considered all options, and I knew without a doubt I would be dead if I didn’t pull the cord on the marriage, that it would still break my partner’s heart in two. As mean and as cruel as he seemed to be, I knew that he really had no intent on truly hurting me. But the relationship was beyond fixing. I knew the day it broke apart, it would break his heart more than mine. That’s what opened me up from stem to stern all the way to my backbone….totally opened up, hurting, and in pain from knowing I would hurt the person I loved for so many years.

That ‘opening’ never completely healed, the wound never really fully closed. But that is a good thing. Suffering is an opening that gives you the gift of compassion on a human-being level. It is where compassion is born. On the most basic level there is, you are gutted. But it is through this wound that you are softened. It is a place from which Spirit is allowed to flow, and where you can give of yourself, to help others.

My hurt and pain seemed to be on the surface for so long after that opening. I hurt for others going through the same thing. It’s called empathy. I also love the study of the Buddhist philosophy and practice of Tonglen, Continue reading →

Guides are beings that help us with our life’s journey. Much like the idea of a guardian angel. Some stick with us for life, other specialists can come and go, depending on what is happening in our lives. When I say guides, the word is also a hint at what their role is in our lives. They can’t and won’t make us do anything. That is not their purpose. They are our helpers on the other side, assisting us in what we want to accomplish. If we go off track, they cajole, they hint, they advise, they knock us over the head with a 2×4 in order to get our attention. They help us learn a lesson that keeps repeating in our life. They can come in with specialized information depending on what’s going on. Are you building a home? Getting a divorce? Preparing for your first child? Speaking in front of a large crowd for the first time? Starting your own business? Dealing with your in-laws? Guides with such experience or information will come and go throughout our lives as we need them.

How guides communicate with us
They communicate with us through many channels. I get visions or quick snapshots of images, hear a word or two in my head, keep hearing a song on the radio, keep seeing a particular image or color repeated. My dreams are a big way they communicate with me. Those dreams are usually very short and very crystal clear. As if time has stopped. They communicate through many channels and in events called synchronicities. Communicating through our Intuition is a big way they communicate with us. Pay attention to and develop your intuition and messages and information will come at you with more regularity.

Guides never push us through a door
It is up to us to choose the next door to walk through. I think of it this way: Guides can bring us to a door, or series of doors (choices), but they cannot make us walk through the door. That’s up to us. We are the captains of our ship, guides are just swabbing the poop deck and hoisting the mainsail! Well, not really, but you get the idea. I call them my lightworker team or celestial crew.

The Intuitive Reader and Guides—How it Works
Some native american tribes describe the person doing a reading as a hollow bone. A hollow bone for the flow of information from Spirit to Earth. That’s a great analogy. The intuitive does not ‘know’ this information and it does not come from them. It comes from Spirit. They do not ‘predict’ your future, you are given information from Spirit, for your best path forward.

If you are the one having a reading, the intuitive will first ask for permission for the exchange of information to occur. This happens in the blink of an eye. It’s like knocking on someone’s door instead of just walking in without notice. It’s the polite thing to do. That’s my understanding of the process.

If the sitter wished for this information to come to them personally, they can work on recognizing and developing their intuitive skills. It’s possible. 🙂 I teach classes on developing intuition. Check it out here.

Having an Open Heart
If you are having a reading and you do not have an open heart, no information will come through. That’s the very first step, is for both parties involved to take some deep breaths, sit quietly, and open their hearts, allowing Continue reading →

Like this:

“Don’t take anything personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality. Their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.” —Don Miguel Ruiz

For many years after traumatic, chaotic, emotionally and mentally abusive events occur, your body goes through the motions of post-traumatic effects. Your body and you create what I call coping patterns. My brain tells me the daily abuse is over and I am healed, but my body doesn’t care where the attacks come from. All it know is it is time to ride out the storm for a few days if something happens that is not part of a normal day. Even one person, or a group of people in a meeting talking over me loudly ignoring what I have to say, will set off an episode of what I call hunkering down. These are big triggers for me. Your body has a way of remembering how you got through the abuse. It gets tired, slowing you down, making you sleep a lot. Maybe you eat your way to comfort, or drink yourself to sleep. You cocoon. You repair. You sleep.

Your body will hold onto past trauma, this has been scientifically proven. That’s why doing body work such as yoga, Tai Chi, breath work, meditation, and other physical techniques are beneficial. Doing these activities can help your body release old trauma. Also simply recognizing you are having an episode can help bring you out of it and help you cope in a better way.

For me any trauma would have me laying low for three days. I would experience a crushing tired/exhausted feeling near the end of my body’s processing of the perceived trauma. I knew from experience it would take three days for my body to adjust to something my mind was okay with. I call it ‘perceived trauma’ such as a verbal attack or challenge. In my marriage, I was constantly belittled, verbally attacked, torn apart, and mentally and emotionally abused on a daily basis. After a while I did not know up from down. Just getting through a day with no bumps in the road was a small miracle. I kept trying to please my husband and I would work my tail to the bone and still he was unhappy about some part of his life. He took it out on me. He told me, it was always my fault! Almost anything would set him off, and it was usually nothing to be upset at. Nonetheless he would batter me and badger me and make my life miserable. That takes a toll on a person. Continue reading →

Looking back on my very difficult, abusive marriage, I realize I always had a choice. I could have left the instant my instincts said this was a bad pairing, a bad marriage, a very bad experience. Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz story, she found out about the magical powers of her shoes late into her journey. Many people would have been angry at finding out so late, that they had the power to fix things all along. But Dorothy had no regret in the difficult, mysterious, scary path she had taken that seemed out of her control.

She had a fantastic journey and met many friends along the way. Had she chosen to use the power of her magical ruby slippers sooner, she would never have found her voice and her own personal power. Without this difficult journey, she would not be the same person she was by the end of the movie.

I felt the same was true with my situation. Even though my marriage and split was hard and seemed out of my control, was full of pitfalls, daily emotional and mental drama, and frustration at every turn, it made me stronger and is still giving me insights. Through this baptism by fire, I found my voice and my personal power, and no one can take that from me, ever again. (Cue the happy ending music!)

The most life-changing insight of all was that I always had a choice. As hard and painful as the path had been to get to this insight, I was happy to be where I was at once I was on the other side of all the drama and chaos. I have no regrets about the past, nor do I feel I ‘wasted’ my time, as some people say about a failed marriage. It was the path leading to my own personal freedom and power, that taught me to be a compassionate person toward others. I would not give it up for anything! It was hard won and now I own it. I am fully in charge of my life, co-creating my future, compassionately, lovingly. Our paths have many joys and many pitfalls. All experiences are for our highest good, even though at the time, we may not think so.

I don’t remember when I first heard that term, but I was not sure I understood exactly what co-creating meant. So, take off the cowgirl hat and put on the detective hat. It started with my first basic observation that everything is energy.

We live in, and are part of something I call Universal Flow. Once I was more in tune with this flow, I learned to recognize intuition, how it manifests, and how to use it. By using my intuition through paying attention to how it manifested in my body, using the Law of Attraction, and asking for and receiving guidance from Spirit, I started consciously co-creating. I developed my skills with routine, everyday tasks to build on my experience. Now it’s as easy as breathing. Continue reading →

In some posts I talk about The Big Change I went through. And so you will know when I mention this in future blog posts. I was married for over 18 years to someone I loved. Over time this person become volatile, chaotic, overly dramatic and downright cruel. Every day mental and emotional torture and anguish were mine to deal with. I kept trying to keep my marriage together, but it didn’t work. Hanging on way past the time I should have left was foolish, but keep in mind the idea of Divine Right Timing. You do things when you are ready. Time was running out and I knew I would either be dead shortly, or I would have to get out of the marriage. Our split would mean this person would go kicking and screaming, would make my life miserable, with more drama than any drama llama could muster. It all happened as I suspected. But all that is water under the bridge.

The Big Change was not living in that very abusive and demoralizing situation where I constantly undervalued and ignored my own needs. The divorce was not The Big Change as many might assume. The Big Change was the seven or eight years after the split where my spirituality and love of anything I was denied during the marriage were explored deeply and passionately, with huge doses of cowgirl common sense thrown in for good measure. My ex hated God, religion, or the idea of anything greater than himself. He especially hated and abhorred anything metaphysical. Now that I was no longer being held down by him, I had my time to explore, have fun, and really dig into many areas of life that had previously been shut off to me.

In returning to what I call a new normal, many things that I was exploring were Continue reading →

What does that mean, to be the space for something or someone? For me, it means detaching from the drama, the chaos, and the emotionality of what is unfolding. It also means to hold space for what is occurring to let things be for the highest good for all concerned, without your personal bias. It’s on an energetic, vibe level that you are holding space. That’s holding space or being the space for something or someone.

Being the space for two people, let’s say two good friend who are arguing, would be to detach emotionally, stay present, send love and don’t hope for any particular outcome. Remain neutral as possible while supporting the space for this to occur. It is very important to make sure you are not biased in the outcome whatsoever. Make sure it is for the highest good of all concerned. Continue reading →

What does it mean to send love? It’s an energy thing. Since I believe everything is energy, you can bet your bottom dollar I feel love as a vibration, an energetic force. A force for good, not evil. (You know I had to say that!)

First you have to understand love (or any emotion) vibrationally. In terms of what I will call the emotional vibrational scale, Love is at the top, and it’s opposite, fear is at the bottom. All actions, all emotions, all feelings, are either love-based or fear-based. Gossip, complaining, prejudice and jealousy are all fear based. Compassion, giddy feelings, joy, happiness, and appreciation are all Love-based. Continue reading →